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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 13, 1985)
I Triplets have less market appeal T he Frustaci septuplets became stars overnight. Reporters congregated near the hospital, and book and movie offers began to pour in. Gerber Products, Inc., the fa mous baby food makers, offered the Frustacis free goods. A news conference was called to announce the names of the ba bies. The health of the six surviving babies was monitered daily by the news services. Sadly, the media reported the deaths of four of the infants. We saw television pictures of undersized new borns struggling for their breaths. We read in newspapers of medical complications and fertility drugs. The Frustacis were probed by reporters after each death. The parents allowed People Magazine to be on hand the first time Mrs. Frustaci saw her children, which probably brought in some money for them, but their medical bills are enormous and still growing. Now that only three babies remain alive, the offers are disap- pearing as fast as they came in. A trust fund the Frustacis set up for their children has only $2,000 in it. f he country’s facination with a seven-in-one birth has worn of f. And so has the market value for the “septuplet commodity.” Fhe Frustacis were used by the media, then abandoned. Gerber now claims its gift offer only applies to births of quin- tuplets or more. Now that the Frustaci children are merely trip lets, ( Ti ber says it will give only a small assortment of gifts. This down-scaled offer seems more like a door prize than a gift of sincerity. Naturally, not every unusual birth should be financially sup ported by the media, private companies, or even personal dona tions. But the Frustacis were exploited by the media and other businesses to boost sales. Now that the sensationalism of the event has all but worn off, they no longer have a use for the Frustacis. The Frustacis are real people and are facing real problems, both f inancial and emotional. They have suffered enough with out being discarded by those who originally of fered to help. ' The Battalion Editorial Board Moderation acceptable Prohibition is hard to swallow I ley. want to try a new drink at your favorite watering hole? How about a strawberry crush, a banana boat or a w a t e r in e I o n cooler? Or if you arc- really daring, a C i l - J e t o r a n Evian. tion. In Reagantown, we have become a country of health-crazed non-drinkers. Yet, we still go to bars to socialize. The bars still encourage us to come. They just don’t use the happy hour hook to get us in. Now it’s music and salad bars and a general “good times” theme lure. Cheryl Clark 1 he newest names in non-alcoholic drinks. The newest laws in the courts. The newest trend in America. A trend towards so briety. Are we cutting off our noses in spite of our faces? Drinking laws have been stiffened — considerably. All 50 states are raising the drinking age almost in unison. The government is applying some not-so- subtle pressure on the states. Local lawmakers are taking their own intiative by raising and strengthing the drinking laws. I’ve always had a rule at my apart- During the New Year’s Eve holiday revelry in Dallas, the police were stop ping cars at 9 a.m. checking for drunken drivers. The hotels offered not ment; if 1 say one of my guests can’t just all you could eat and drink for a drive home because they have had too much too drink, then the guest doesn’t drive. Someone who hasn’t had too much too ch ink does the driving, or the guest crashes on the sofa. New Year’s Eve special, but also a hotel room thrown in for good measure. I would hate-too think of one of my friends involved in a car accident be cause’ of too much booze, especially af ter I let them out on the road in that condit ion. The media, all forms, saturate read ers with the non-drinking idea. Candy Lightner, original mother of MADD, should be commended. The nose cutting comes in when the word Prohibition enters the scene. I had a roommate who had too much to drink one night. So did the friend she was driving with. They both wound up in a ditc h with the car upside-down. No one was hurt, but she still laughs about it. I know how a person looks and acts and thinks when they have had too muc h to chink. I’ve been that way my self more than once. Americans often perform a terrific 360-degree turn when slightly pushed. I think we would find out we like to drink better than we realize if suddenly we couldn’t drink anymore. Prohibition proved only one thing — you can’t govern morality. People have to decide what is excess and what is not in some areas of their life. A Tactical Theater Airborne Combat Combustion. Containment And Storage Unit. UNTTPHCE. 46S9.00 Ax, A. Strategic Suspension Retractable Merfece Modde. UNIT PRICE £640.00 A Revenue Outhffr ft'oeurement Symbol. UNIT H3CE. - TAffiS Understanding a University Tranquility often hides Up some potential conflicts To the outsider, a university appears to be an “island of tran quility in a sea of chaos.” Even to many of its inhabitants it Clinton A Phillips Guest Columnist Sometimes I believe nothing is more frightening than a drunk, because you really can’t control a person who has too' much too drink, or reason with them or plead.with them. Too many people died from drinking bootleg liquor. The president still served alcohol in the White House to guests. The law was repealed. fhe national mood is shifting in that direction, too. The country is becoming the proverbial “brother's keeper.” Moderation is fine. I think people do have a better time at a social gathering if they don’t get smashed. I know they have a better time the next morning. Bars are being held responsible for the actions of its patrons. Party hosts no l<Miger lei their guests stagger from tbchi part\ lor feat of legal reprisal. J bree-mat titii lunches have become a c inosaur. However, moderation is one thing and abstinence another. Let’s not go overboard on eliminating alcohol com pletely from our lives. Many people are responsible, considerate drinkers who use alcohol in a sensible manner. Non-alcoholic drinks have become the trademark of the Yuppie genera- Don’t bring the axe down on alcohol yet, just keep the drunks off the street. Cheryl Clark is a senior journalism ma jor and a columnist for The Battalion. may appear tranquil. But the- analog) may be inaccurate, for within the uni versity there exists high potential for conflict. Indeed, a strong case can be made that the potential is at least as powerf ul in universities as in other or ganizations where conflict is more visi ble — i.e. in business or politics. Be neath the surface are numerous sources of conflict that must be examined if we are to understand the university. Let us look at some conflict genera tors. One that frequently arises for the faculty is the contention between loyalty to discipline and loyalty to the institu tion. Over 2,000 faculty members teach at and are paid by Texas A&M Univer sity. Accordingly, they owe allegiance to the University. But their allegiance is di vided. Faculty members also “belong” to a discipline. Typically they belong to one or more associations in their disci pline whose meetings they attend and whose journals they peruse. Membership in such associations also serves to reinforce their allegiance to their discipline. At meetings of these as sociations and through the association’s journals, faculty present their research findings thereby advancing knowledge in their disciplines. Such activities have the further effect of helping enhance the image of the University and the aca demic stature of the faculty members who have done the research. In turn, the latter, by making “na mes” for themselves, become more at tractive to other institutions which might wish to hire them away. The ef fect of this discipline-institution tension is that academicians serve two masters — they have divided loyalties. The potential for conflict of interest is real. If a university experiences finan cial or morale difficulties, the travail is telegraphed nationally and even inter nationally as the “stars” are more easily lured to other academic firmaments. This leads to the potential conflict of teaching and research. In theory, and usually in practice, teaching and re search are symbiotic, not competitive. .People who pursue an academic career typically do so because they love to learn and also love to impart their learning in both spoken and written words. One enhances the other; at the grad uate level, they are one and the same. There is no conflict there, hut the po tential for conflict does exist. The professor who publishes prolifi- cally does, as I indicated earlier, attain high professional visibility and there fore becomes more attractive to other institutions. Because a great university’s reputation is based on the research of its outstanding scholars, the administrators of such institutions are loath to lose these “stars.” Thus, everv effort is made to keep the salaries of outstanding scholars competitive with those of fac ulty members of comparable reputation elsewhere. The effect mav he that the person who publishes frequent Iv mav enjoy a higher salary than the pet son who is a less visible but equally good tea cher. There is a tendency, if administrators are not careful, to allow a two-class fac ulty to develop — especiall) in research- oriented institutions like A&M. A third potential cause of conflict may occur when there is a change in the mission of a university. A&rM is an excel lent example of an institution that has dramatically changed and enlarged its mission so as to focus more on research and on graduate education. Some of out older faculty members have been caught in this change. They joined the faculty with per ceived expectations that their primary role would he to teach undergraduates, only to find in subsequent years that what is expected of them as faculty members now is also to do research and teach graduate and undergraduate edu cation. Again administrators must take care to avoid the possibility of creating a two-class faculty. Inherent in this expanded mission at A&M has been a change in emphasis to ward graduate education. As we seek to expand graduate enrollments to 25 per cent of the total enrollment from the present 17 percent level, we must he ever-mindful that this objective must not he achieved at the expense of quality undergraduate education, and this em phasis must be continued. A fourth cause of potential conflict arises in part because of concern over the quality of undergraduate education and in part because of disagreement over how much of the curriculum to de vote to professional education. Throughout the nation, universities are re-examining their undergraduate curricula in an effort to define some minimum requirements that will pro vide all students with a set of general ed ucation experiences. At A&M, the Fac ulty Senate is currently wrestling with this problem. It is contended with considerable logic that for a person be a professional engineer, accountant or whatever, he or she must have training in various as pects of t hat discipline. Accrediting agencies have been estab lished to try to ensure that the person who graduates in one of these disci plines does so with full complement of discipline-oriented skills and concepts. But these professional programs tend to absorb much of the student’s available time; opportunities to take experience- broadening courses in the liberal arts and sciences are limited, fhe danger is that the student will he too narrowly ed ucated in a professional program. He or she will be trained for a job but not edu cated for citizenship. Somewhere, a middle ground must he determined. Inherent in the process of forging a curriculum tl il provide breadth is the potential for setting the faculty in the professional schools against their colleagues in the arts and sciences. Con flict over academic turf can arouse pro fessorial passions to a fury. Finally, there is a fifth set of tensions arising out of complex relationships among various constituencies of a uni versity. The’ relationship between fac ulty and administration may not always he harmonious. At some institutions, contention over the sharing of univer sity governance has led to faculty union ization. At most institutions, however, some kind of faculty senate has pro vided a mechanism for sharing govern ance, airing conflicts and alleviating ten sions. Student senates have played a similar role for students vis-a-vis administration or faculty. Graduates of a univesitv.B A Col ganized into alumni associations,mav*en self another source of potential conflictiP] eo P* t : nt pecially in athletic matters. rfcise $2^ .. ..... sfcsoo ti for state-assisted institutions, tewE latures and state coordinating agent® Debbie sometimes create more npportunioHin to for conflict. Fhe accrediting agetq Winch is ; which often claim to know what isw 1,011 dmt pjj. the unive- 1 "**' ’*a .»e the uversitv and are not hesitar " , in ' try to impose their views, a, ' e member potential source of conflict. gmu Finally, the governing board ofi said, institution may generate conflict. T'H Robert ically board members are vvell-ini|j- , |) With tioned persons who are successful ta s J ie ls ^. a ness or professional persons actual experience as academicians, fli tend to view the university moreffll corporation, perhaps, and this atui'J too can create tension. All in all, the modern reseat® oriented university is a wondrous! complex place. For those who seeli guide its destiny, it is not sufficient! provide, as one college presidents# “sex for the students, football lorlj alumni and parking lor the faculty,’ Fhe academic administrator n harness the myriad tensions inherent^ a university to achieve a creativebalanl among them. To do it successful!)i quires great skill in communicationaf a willingness to trust affected part/ftj faculty, students and others —tos« advice and to share authority ai sponsibility for the academic operatiotj of the university. Dr. Clinton A. Phillips is the dennofm ulties and associate provost of TesT A&M The Battalion USPS 045 360 Member of Texas I’ress Association Southwest Journalism Confcromc The Battalion Editorial Board Kellie Pworaczyk, Editor Kay Mallett, John Hallelt, News Editor Loren Steily, Editorial Page Editor Sarah Oates, City Editor Travis Tingle. Sports Editor The Battalion Staff Assistant City Editor Katherine Him Assistant News Editor Cathie Anderson Entertainment Editors- J (lathy Riely, WallerSmitli Copy Editor...i Trent l.co|x>l(l Make-up Editors Ed Cassarm. . Karla Marlin Editorial Policy ! he lint Lilian is ./ non-])n>in. sellsuj)i)ni lin# /j<!'tt.vjw/H’r ajieniU'd .is u t <>nmiunit\ sc/wer to Lexus \KM ml Iir\ ;m-( .'<>llci>e Sint inn. Opinions expu ssed <// The lint Lilian ;nv lltmr ol lk Tdilorinl linnrd at the nndiai. and da not netessmil} ic/f icsent the opinions ai I ex,is A£. \l ;i<ltninistiuloi\ luah or the Haul (I ol Regents. 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